


Amnesia Was Her Name

by cloudfromffvii



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Gen, also nanaki's there if you squint, the 'i have no mouth and i must scream' trope is employed here to an extent, this is set during mideel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 16:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudfromffvii/pseuds/cloudfromffvii
Summary: Cloud's not well.He's not sure where he is or what's happening, but something is wrong and the only thing making any sense is the mysterious woman that comes and visits him every so often through the haze.





	Amnesia Was Her Name

**Author's Note:**

> based on a lemon demon song of the same name

_Head hurts._

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting here.

What day it was.

 _Where_ he was.

 _How_ he’d gotten here.

He wasn’t even wholly sure if he was awake or if he was in some strange, extended semi-lucid dream. Almost every time he tried to move his limbs they wouldn’t bother responding; all he really got was an unpleasant pins-and-needles feeling (almost like the white _black_ **_static_ **behind his eyes whenever a migraine started-) and another point taken off the ‘is it really worth it’ tally.

What movement he _could_ make was simple; he could lift his head, though he couldn’t really control how far he moved, and sometimes he’d slump right forward and it’d take everything he had to sit back up again- if his arms and back would listen.

_Why can’t I feel my body?_

The only time he got any reprieve from this is when _she_ came in to see him. Her presence alone seemed to clear out most of the static from his body, at least for a little while. He would reach up and rub at his face, slump down in his chair (a wheelchair?), watch her move about and fuss with things while he got himself sorted.

“You’ve really gotten yourself into a predicament, haven’t you, Cloud?”

_Cloud… is that me?_

Squinting his eyes, he’d look at her as she smiled warmly at him, coming over to crouch down beside him. He knew her- he _knew_ her- but he could not for the _life_ of him place her face. Long brown hair and a warm, familiar smile- the fear of _whatever_ was nothing compared to how safe she made him feel.

“You have really pretty eyes, you know that?” The woman laughed and he felt something clench in his chest. “Where... am I?”

“I found you here,” she said softly, reaching up and giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m not sure where you were before, but I’m glad I found you. I’ve been worried.”

Every visit she had went like this. And in the end, he was never sure when she left. It was like suddenly she was just… _gone_. He wasn’t quite sure how long he waited between each one, but it was the only thing he had to look forward to during the sickly, swirling lengths of time until she came and cleared it all back up.

_Why do you have to leave?_

 

\--

 

It didn’t happen when other people came through. People in white coats, people with clipboards. He _assumed_ they were doctors, from what the woman told him during her visits. Whenever they came in the heavy fog remained, and sometimes even worsened.

_Are they talking about me?_

He could only ever make out a couple of words whenever someone was speaking, whether it was directly to him or not. He couldn’t fucking tell. All of their sentences tended to run together. Not that he particularly cared; the only thing he could have wanted to know was how to _not feel like this anymore_.

Sometimes he would try to raise his head when someone came in, maybe get their attention. Maybe if they touched him like the woman did, it would ease the horrible white noise pulsing through his body- but it never did. Sometimes his head would tip right back, sometimes he would slump forward like usual. One of the people would come over and help right him, sitting him up again with just his head hanging forward.

Their touches never affected the static.

In fact, he couldn’t feel their touches at all.

Then one visit, the woman came in and crouched down beside him, placing a gentle hand on his knee and smiling brightly at him as he looked up to her. She was pretty much the only thing his eyes could focus on- and he knew her from _somewhere_ and he didn’t have words for how fucking _frustrating_ it was. It was right on the tip of his tongue, just out of his mental grasp.

“Your friends will be visiting soon!” Her voice was cheery, free of the heavy concern it usually held at the start of there conversations. It warmed the hollow of his chest, drowning out the buzzing trying to take hold of his limbs. “I’m not sure if you’ll be able to say much to them, but I thought you’d like to know anyway.”

_My friends…?_

 

\--

 

“... Poisoning… ...vanced case….”

He became aware of a voice- one of the doctors, he was pretty sure- speaking quite close to him. He wasn’t sure if he’d opened his eyes or whether they’d been open the entire time, but the colours began to focus _just_ enough to start making out shapes.

Without the help of his as-of-yet unnamed friend, that was the best he could do most of the time.

He could see the white of the doctor’s coat, and other shapes near him- another person(?), and a red splotch of… whatever the fuck _that_ was.

“... Probably… ...who or where he….”

The not-doctor moved closer and crouched down in front of him as the doctor continued on, his voice bleeding in and out of the muddy vortex his comprehension was right now-

“... Literally miles away from us.”

A hand touched his knee and a jolt of _not_ static shot through his leg, making his head jerk up just a little bit. Or- it _felt_ like just a little bit, but his head tilted back and he was left staring and the fluorescently-lit ceiling. (It didn’t hurt his eyes, he couldn’t focus enough for it, and because he couldn’t _feel_ anything-)

“Somewhere… never been… All alone.”

But he _did_. He felt the twinge in his neck as his head lolled back, and it startled him enough that he brought it back, twinging again as he hung his head. Fingers might have dug into his leg? He wasn’t totally sure.

“Cloud…”

His name came through loud and clear, cutting through the fog like pottery wire. Trying to raise his head yielded nothing this time, though; whatever strength he’d had, whatever sensation he’d been aware of, was gone- funneled into parsing the noises around him, apparently. Or more… this particular person’s voice.

Time still meant nothing- at some point the other colours in the room had left, leaving him with only the person now with her arms crossed on his lap. He could feel the pressure through the static, and in parts it made it feel worse, but it _felt_ and that was all that mattered.

“What… want me to do…?” Her voice was washing in and out like regular now, but he took what presence he had and _tried_ to focus it on her. The more he tried, though, the further her voice seemed to be. “Please talk… ...tell… ...can see…. hear… please.”

_Tifa…?_

 

\--

 

Keeping track of anything and everything was getting harder and harder. Visits from his visitor were becoming less and less frequent; the only upside was that he’d lost so much context for everything around him that he never really noticed that he’d had to wait to see her again.

Whenever the woman wasn’t there, his friend (she was, wasn’t she? He knew her. It was _Tifa_ -) and the white coats seemed to be around. He could _almost_ make out his friend- but trying to focus on her features would shoot a searing pain through behind his eyes, and he’d have to give up.

He wanted to say something, let her know that at least _sometimes_ he could hear her, he could feel her, but his throat was numb; and every time he tried to force it, it just tightened up. He must have been making _some_ sound- sometimes Tifa would look up toward him as if she was reacting to something- but if he was, he couldn’t hear it.

And then she walked in.

The woman never visited when others were in the room. But here she was, striding into his vision and carefully moving past Tifa, apologising quietly for getting in her way, before putting a hand gently his shoulder.

_Is something shaking..?_

“I’m sorry Cloud, but this is urgent,” the woman said, her voice hurried as she glanced around the room. Things were beginning to move, and he could hear the voices of the other people in the room starting up, though he couldn’t hear it through the fog clouding his brain. “I know you’re healing, but something terrible is coming. You need to help your friends.”

“They’re…” His voice was tense and croaky, nothing like how it usually sounded when he spoke to her during their visits, and he could _feel_ the rawness of his throat. “They’re… coming….”

_Something’s definitely shaking._

 

\--

 

Mideel had been experiencing some earthquakes recently, but Tifa hadn’t really been paying attention to them. She’d barely left her friend’s side, often sitting on the floor in front of his wheelchair and reading out books she’d borrowed from other people in the village. The shakes _had_ been getting stronger, but she was sure it was nothing to worry about.

Nothing compared to the Meteor, anyway.

Later, she’d assume she shouldn’t have been caught off guard by the violent tremors rocking the little village, but they were nothing compared to the earthquakes that had happened over the last week.

They started suddenly, a sudden lurch rather than a gradual rolling that built up. It only took one or two shakes for things to start falling off the shelves- and for the woman to end up on her ass, one arm bent in an awkward attempt to catch herself on a chair.

Hearing Cloud’s voice wasn’t something she’d been expecting. Well, he’d been mumbling occasionally (though not actual _words_ , just airy noises that meant nothing- though they meant a lot to _her_ ), but when she heard honest-to-the-gods _words_ she jerked her head up.

“They’re… they’re.. coming…”

“What-? Who’s coming-?” His wheelchair was being unsettled by the shakes, despite the breaks on the wheels; she hurried over to him, planting her feet as firmly as she could on the floor and wrapping an arm around him, the other holding the wheelchair as steady as she could. She could hear a commotion starting up outside.

She wasn’t going to get another response out of Cloud, she could already tell, and the who (or _what_ ) he’d mentioned wasn’t the issue.

Keeping herself and her dearest friend safe was.

The shaking itself stopped as suddenly as it started. She didn’t let go of him, though- no telling when the next earthquake would hit. And what if it was worse?

(The real answer to that was leaving, but for the moment she just _couldn’t_ move. Tifa was glued to the spot, arms around her friend to protect him. And he probably didn’t even _know_ she was there-)

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the nurses walked in, checking to see if anyone was still in the clinic. She stepped in when she noticed the pair of them. Tifa finally relaxed a little, standing back up straight but leaving her hand on Cloud’s shoulder.

“Everyone’s evacuating the village,” she explained, “and I didn’t want anyone to get left behind here. I don’t know if…” The nurse paused for a moment. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get him out of Mideel, but I think it’ll at least be safer to be out in the open-”

“Absolutely,” Tifa agreed. “Better than being in there where the whole thing could collapse on us.” She knelt herself down in front of Cloud for a second, grabbing his limp hands in her own. The ground was beginning to shake, though slower to rise than before. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Cloud. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

 

\--

 

( _I’ll keep you both safe, Cloud. Don’t worry._ )

The colours had long since stopped making sense.

_A sealed up secret wish… that no one can ever know._

Everything had stopped making sense.

He couldn’t see or hear or _feel_ anything, and yet he could sense everything swirling around him; not physically, like water or a gust of wind, but on a layer of his consciousness he hadn’t previously been aware of. It made him feel dizzy and sick and frightened all at once, and in tandem, nothing at all.

_That starry night at the well… What if it was all a lie?_

It was like a local anaesthetic almost, but _everywhere_ in his body that it could reach. He could _almost_ feel pressure, coming at him from all sides, and yet there was no sensation from his skin or any other part of him.

He wasn’t alone, though. That was the one thing that quelled the terror.

(Well, he was never _really_ alone, he’d come to understand that. But…)

There was someone else there in the nothingness- someone that _wasn’t_ him- and he desperately wanted to reach out to them, but he couldn’t even tell where his arms or hands were, let alone where _they_ were.

Whoever it was, though, it wasn’t the woman that had been helping him.

_The gates of Nibelheim… That’s where it all started._

Images were beginning to pool in his mind, sharpening and growing clearer through the nauseous haze of everything else. Images he didn’t want to see. An ache began behind his eyes, quickly spreading through the rest of his skull. Closing his eyes didn’t help; they occupied the same strange void his consciousness seemed to- they were one and the same- and the sharper they got, the worse the pain began to get.

Time meant nothing.

( _Everyone’s waiting, Cloud._ )

 

\--

 

Before he even tried opening his eyes, pain shot straight from one temple to the other, forcing a hiss out of him. Through the fog of just having woken up from what felt like the world’s worst nap session,

_It’s alright. We’re alright._

Blinking his eyes open, his vision was (still) blurred; for just a moment, he felt his chest clench _painfully_ with a gasp and his blood run like _ice_ with terror, but a few more blinks and it began to clear.

The light wherever he woke up was dim and warm. It was comforting, and he tried to relax, closing his eyes again. There was someone nearby, but he didn’t have the energy to interact- he soon felt someone sit on his bedside and jumped a little, opening his eyes again to be met with Tifa’s concerned face.

For a tense second she hesitated, looking almost afraid that if she touched him, he’d disappear. He opened his mouth to speak however, and she dove in, wrapped her arms around him tightly. Cloud groaned as it jostled his brain, but she didn’t pull back.

“I thought you’d _never_ wake up,” she said into his shoulder, loosening her hold without freeing him. “I thought you’d be stuck like _that_ for the rest of- of forever, and that I’d never get to speak with you again-”

“Wait, wait wait,” and his voice was scratchy and his throat was sore, but he could _speak_ and the relief was indescribable, “hold up, Tifa…”

He brought his arms up to wrap them around her all the same, giving her a weak squeeze back. Even holding back, Tifa’s hold on him wasn’t very strong either, he could feel it in the way her arms were trembling. She looked pale and exhausted.

“Catch me up, Ti. What’s going on? Where are we?”

_Does it matter? We’re safe now._

Tifa finally sat up, rubbing a hand over her face and taking a breath to steady herself. Her eyes were red and puffy- whether she’d _been_ crying or was about to start, he couldn’t tell.

“The rest of the team brought us back to Fort Condor,” she explained, offering a hand and helping Cloud sit himself up. Pain laced from his spine and down his limbs, but a small part of him couldn’t even bring himself to complain beyond reacting to it because at least he was _feeling_. “You’ve been completely out for a few days, apparently. So had I.”

“Brought us back-?”

“Mideel, Cloud. There’s barely anything left of it.”

A cold, jagged feeling began creeping up his neck as half-melted maybe-memories flashed in his mind; a wheelchair, some sort of clinic, the almost tingling numbness-

“Is everyone safe?”

“Cid and Barret did what they could to get everyone out of the village, I _think_ everyone’s accounted for. The people of Fort Condor have been _really_ kind about this whole thing- people are scared and hurt, and they needed somewhere to stay while we figure out what to do about Mideel. At least the village was small, I suppose.”

“Thank the gods,” Cloud murmured back, before perking up again. “Wait- during… whatever the fuck _that_ all was… There was a woman- not any of the doctors- that would come and keep me company, do you know if she’s okay? I’d like to thank her.”

“Hm… no one but the doctors asked about you,” Tifa murmured, folding her arms and looking down at the bed in thought. “Do you remember what she looked like?”

Cloud scratched at his cheek idly, eyes also drifting to the blanket. “Uhh… well, she had really pretty eyes-”

“Of course.”

“- hey, shut up. She had really pretty eyes, and I think.. her hair was _brown_? And she had it pulled back in this long braid, and she might have...”

The look on Tifa’s face wasn’t what made Cloud trail off. There was a strange feeling beginning to churn in his chest as he spoke. They both knew exactly who she looked like.

The realisation dawned on the pair of them together; there was no horror, only a content sort of melancholy.

**Author's Note:**

> alrighty here we go!
> 
> ok for those who might be confused, full italics is dialogue from baby cloud (vis a vis cloud and tifa's time in the lifestream) and the full italics in brackets specifically is dialogue from aeris.
> 
> this fic definitely didn't turn out the way i initially envisioned, but i'm happy with it. it's based on the premise that since cloud is suffering from some pretty intense mako-poisoning, aeris (or rather, her ghost) is able to interact with him through the lifestream which is currently poisoning him. which means that once he's out of mideel and recovered from said poisoning, she has no access to him anymore. but she's always there, watching over her friends, even if they can't sense it.
> 
> it doesn't stick as closely to the the story of the song it's based on as i intended, but i think that's fine, honestly.
> 
> anyway, thank you for taking the time to read!


End file.
